Monday, October 13, 2014

For those who don't know what the Air race is, 12-15 pilots take acrobatic aircraft around a course of pylons. The Race is timed for who ever gets around the pylons the fastest with out hitting them and following the certain rules pertaining to each race course.

This weekend was hosted at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. the track it self was one of the less complicated ones of the series, a few gates and pylons.

The events of Saturday was qualifiers, which was scheduled to happen 3 hours AFTER we arrived. assuming that since Nellis AFB was not far off, i figured that 'Hey air planes, the Air Force might have something cool to show all the race attendees.' Nope No Air force or anything really flying related besides a few inflated able pictures of the aircraft. not much to do for the dead time besides buy food that could quite possibly be described as worse then a elementary school lunch.

The really fun part of the trip was seeing the qualifiers, each aircraft skillfully maneuvering around the course and beating the other races by fractions of a second. really exciting stuff!

Race Peter Besenyei and Kirby Chambliss waiting to take off

Sunday was a tad bit more interesting, wind was howling and made the pylons go every which way.
A few racers hit the pylons making them explode.* So the race stops, teams go out to fix the pylons, meanwhile the wind is getting stronger, knocking more pylons over. teams go out to re inflate the fallen pylons. then the ones they fix topple. after 20 minutes of this the race was put on hold. and deciding that it was probably not going to continue we left.

Turns out the race organizers came to the same conclusion ending the race giving it to the Canadian racer Pete McLeod.

The race was Fun to watch. It is much different in real life compared to watching the race on TV.

*The pylons are built to when anything brushes past it it shatters, no airplanes were hurt in the race.